Second Epilogue: 1813-20 - Chapter X

by Leo Tolstoy

　　Thus our conception of free will and inevitability graduallydiminishes or increases according to the greater or lesserconnection with the external world, the greater or lesser remotenessof time, and the greater or lesser dependence on the causes inrelation to which we contemplate a man's life.

　　So that if we examine the case of a man whose connection with theexternal world is well known, where the time between the action andits examination is great, and where the causes of the action aremost accessible, we get the conception of a maximum of inevitabilityand a minimum of free will. If we examine a man little dependent onexternal conditions, whose action was performed very recently, and thecauses of whose action are beyond our ken, we get the conception ofa minimum of inevitability and a maximum of freedom.

　　In neither case- however we may change our point of view, howeverplain we may make to ourselves the connection between the man andthe external world, however inaccessible it may be to us, however longor short the period of time, however intelligible orincomprehensible the causes of the action may be- can we ever conceiveeither complete freedom or complete necessity.

　　(1) To whatever degree we may imagine a man to be exempt from theinfluence of the external world, we never get a conception offreedom in space. Every human action is inevitably conditioned by whatsurrounds him and by his own body. I lift my arm and let it fall. Myaction seems to me free; but asking myself whether I could raise myarm in every direction, I see that I raised it in the direction inwhich there was least obstruction to that action either from thingsaround me or from the construction of my own body. I chose one outof all the possible directions because in it there were fewestobstacles. For my action to be free it was necessary that it shouldencounter no obstacles. To conceive of a man being free we mustimagine him outside space, which is evidently impossible.

　　(2) However much we approximate the time of judgment to the timeof the deed, we never get a conception of freedom in time. For if Iexamine an action committed a second ago I must still recognize itas not being free, for it is irrevocably linked to the moment at whichit was committed. Can I lift my arm? I lift it, but ask myself:could I have abstained from lifting my arm at the moment that hasalready passed? To convince myself of this I do not lift it the nextmoment. But I am not now abstaining from doing so at the firstmoment when I asked the question. Time has gone by which I could notdetain, the arm I then lifted is no longer the same as the arm I nowrefrain from lifting, nor is the air in which I lifted it the samethat now surrounds me. The moment in which the first movement was madeis irrevocable, and at that moment I could make only one movement, andwhatever movement I made would be the only one. That I did not lift myarm a moment later does not prove that I could have abstained fromlifting it then. And since I could make only one movement at thatsingle moment of time, it could not have been any other. To imagine itas free, it is necessary to imagine it in the present, on the boundarybetween the past and the future- that is, outside time, which isimpossible.

　　(3) However much the difficulty of understanding the causes may beincreased, we never reach a conception of complete freedom, that is,an absence of cause. However inaccessible to us may be the cause ofthe expression of will in any action, our own or another's, thefirst demand of reason is the assumption of and search for a cause,for without a cause no phenomenon is conceivable. I raise my arm toperform an action independently of any cause, but my wish to performan action without a cause is the cause of my action.

　　But even if- imagining a man quite exempt from all influences,examining only his momentary action in the present, unevoked by anycause- we were to admit so infinitely small a remainder ofinevitability as equaled zero, we should even then not have arrived atthe conception of complete freedom in man, for a being uninfluenced bythe external world, standing outside of time and independent of cause,is no longer a man.

　　In the same way we can never imagine the action of a man quitedevoid of freedom and entirely subject to the law of inevitability.

　　(1) However we may increase our knowledge of the conditions of spacein which man is situated, that knowledge can never be complete, forthe number of those conditions is as infinite as the infinity ofspace. And therefore so long as not all the conditions influencing menare defined, there is no complete inevitability but a certainmeasure of freedom remains.

　　(2) However we may prolong the period of time between the actionwe are examining and the judgment upon it, that period will be finite,while time is infinite, and so in this respect too there can neverbe absolute inevitability.

　　(3) However accessible may be the chain of causation of anyaction, we shall never know the whole chain since it is endless, andso again we never reach absolute inevitability.

　　But besides this, even if, admitting the remaining minimum offreedom to equal zero, we assumed in some given case- as forinstance in that of a dying man, an unborn babe, or an idiot- completeabsence of freedom, by so doing we should destroy the veryconception of man in the case we are examining, for as soon as thereis no freedom there is also no man. And so the conception of theaction of a man subject solely to the law of inevitability without anyelement of freedom is just as impossible as the conception of aman's completely free action.

　　And so to imagine the action of a man entirely subject to the law ofinevitability without any freedom, we must assume the knowledge ofan infinite number of space relations, an infinitely long period oftime, and an infinite series of causes.

　　To imagine a man perfectly free and not subject to the law ofinevitability, we must imagine him all alone, beyond space, beyondtime, and free from dependence on cause.

　　In the first case, if inevitability were possible without freedom weshould have reached a definition of inevitability by the laws ofinevitability itself, that is, a mere form without content.

　　In the second case, if freedom were possible without inevitabilitywe should have arrived at unconditioned freedom beyond space, time,and cause, which by the fact of its being unconditioned andunlimited would be nothing, or mere content without form.

　　We should in fact have reached those two fundamentals of which man'swhole outlook on the universe is constructed- the incomprehensibleessence of life, and the laws defining that essence.

　　Reason says: (1) space with all the forms of matter that give itvisibility is infinite, and cannot be imagined otherwise. (2) Timeis infinite motion without a moment of rest and is unthinkableotherwise. (3) The connection between cause and effect has nobeginning and can have no end.

　　Consciousness says: (1) I alone am, and all that exists is but me,consequently I include space. (2) I measure flowing time by thefixed moment of the present in which alone I am conscious of myself asliving, consequently I am outside time. (3) I am beyond cause, for Ifeel myself to be the cause of every manifestation of my life.

　　Reason gives expression to the laws of inevitability.Consciousness gives expression to the essence of freedom.

　　Freedom not limited by anything is the essence of life, in man'sconsciousness. Inevitability without content is man's reason in itsthree forms.

　　Freedom is the thing examined. Inevitability is what examines.Freedom is the content. Inevitability is the form.

　　Only by separating the two sources of cognition, related to oneanother as form to content, do we get the mutually exclusive andseparately incomprehensible conceptions of freedom and inevitability.

　　Only by uniting them do we get a clear conception of man's life.

　　Apart from these two concepts which in their union mutually defineone another as form and content, no conception of life is possible.

　　All that we know of the life of man is merely a certain relationof free will to inevitability, that is, of consciousness to the lawsof reason.

　　All that we know of the external world of nature is only a certainrelation of the forces of nature to inevitability, or of the essenceof life to the laws of reason.

　　The great natural forces lie outside us and we are not consciousof them; we call those forces gravitation, inertia, electricity,animal force, and so on, but we are conscious of the force of lifein man and we call that freedom.

　　But just as the force of gravitation, incomprehensible in itself butfelt by every man, is understood by us only to the extent to whichwe know the laws of inevitability to which it is subject (from thefirst knowledge that all bodies have weight, up to Newton's law), sotoo the force of free will, incomprehensible in itself but of whicheveryone is conscious, is intelligible to us only in as far as we knowthe laws of inevitability to which it is subject (from the fact thatevery man dies, up to the knowledge of the most complex economic andhistoric laws).

　　All knowledge is merely a bringing of this essence of life under thelaws of reason.

　　Man's free will differs from every other force in that man isdirectly conscious of it, but in the eyes of reason it in no waydiffers from any other force. The forces of gravitation,electricity, or chemical affinity are only distinguished from oneanother in that they are differently defined by reason. Just so theforce of man's free will is distinguished by reason from the otherforces of nature only by the definition reason gives it. Freedom,apart from necessity, that is, apart from the laws of reason thatdefine it, differs in no way from gravitation, or heat, or the forcethat makes things grow; for reason, it is only a momentary undefinablesensation of life.

　　And as the undefinable essence of the force moving the heavenlybodies, the undefinable essence of the forces of heat and electricity,or of chemical affinity, or of the vital force, forms the content ofastronomy, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, and so on, just in thesame way does the force of free will form the content of history.But just as the subject of every science is the manifestation ofthis unknown essence of life while that essence itself can only be thesubject of metaphysics, even the manifestation of the force of freewill in human beings in space, in time, and in dependence on causeforms the subject of history, while free will itself is the subject ofmetaphysics.

　　In the experimental sciences what we know we call the laws ofinevitability, what is unknown to us we call vital force. Vitalforce is only an expression for the unknown remainder over and abovewhat we know of the essence of life.

　　So also in history what is known to us we call laws ofinevitability, what is unknown we call free will. Free will is forhistory only an expression for the unknown remainder of what we knowabout the laws of human life.